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What if DreamWorks Pictures/DreamWorks Animation was founded in 1934?/Puss in Boots
Puss in Boots is a 2004 American computer-animated fantasy action-adventure comedy film produced by DreamWorks Pictures, loosely based on the fairy tale of the same name by Charles Perrault. It was directed by Chris Miller and written by Brian Lynch and Tom Wheeler. It stars Antonio Banderas, Salma Hayek, Zach Galifianakis, Billy Bob Thornton and Amy Sedaris. Serving as an origin story to the titular character, the film follows an swashbuckling cat named Puss, who accompanied by his friends, Humpty Dumpty and Kitty Softpaws, is pitted against Jack and Jill, two murderous outlaws in ownership of legendary magical beans which lead to great fortune. Puss in Boots premiered at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival, where it competed for the Palme d'Or. The film was subsequently released in theatres on May 19, 2004. It received largely positive reviews and upon its release, the film grossed $919.8 million worldwide. It scored the second-largest, three-day opening weekend in US history and the largest opening for an animated film at the time of its release. It went on to become the highest-grossing film of 2004 worldwide. Puss in Boots is also DreamWorks' most successful computer-animated film to date, solidified Banderas' career and held the title of being the highest-grossing animated film of all time worldwide until Toy Story 3 surpassed it in 2010. The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature at the 77th Academy Awards, and its associated soundtrack reached the Top 10 on the US Billboard 200. A direct-to-video sequel, Puss in Boots Returns, which more closely resembles the original fairy tale, was released on TBD 2007, and a television series, titled The Adventures of Puss in Boots, premiered on Netflix in 2015. Anorther sequel film, titled Puss in Boots 3: Nine Lives & 40 Thieves, was scheduled to be released in 2018, but removed from the DreamWorks schedule in early 2015. Plot Puss in Boots is a talking cat named for his signature pair of boots. Puss is a fugitive on the run from the law, looking to restore his lost honor. The film starts out with Puss escaping from a man who had had him in a cage. He narrowly manages to get away and, after blowing kisses to the female cat he was leaving behind, he makes his way to a town. After being taunted and then gaining the respect of the thugs there, Puss learns that two murderous outlaws, Jack and Jill have the magic beans, which hold an ancient power that can destroy the world. When Puss tries to take them from the two outlaws, another cat with a mask interrupts and tries to get them as well. Both fail and escape, and Puss follows the cat back to a bunch of other cats, where they both have a dance fight and a sword fight, ending with Puss smacking her over the head with a guitar, which upsets the cat so much that she rips her mask off and reveals to a surprised Puss that she is in fact a woman. Puss then meets his adoptive brother Humpty Dumpty, who also introduces her as Kitty Softpaws, named because she can take things without anyone even noticing they are gone (as she does frequently with Puss's hat, boots, and money simply to tease him) and asks him to join them in finding the beans, planting them, and getting the golden eggs which lie at the top. Puss immediately refuses, and even after Kitty tries to woo him into going with them, he denies, and then tells her why. When he was a kitten, he was adopted in a home for orphans, where he met Humpty. The two of them became "brothers" and loved to get into trouble by stealing things. After a bull is accidentally set free, Puss saves an old woman from it and becomes a hero, making Humpty feel left out. He tricks Puss into helping him steal the money from the town's bank, and Puss is forced to flee instead of going to jail as everyone believes he is no longer good. They crash on the bridge, the money going over the side and into the river below, and Puss leaves Humpty to be arrested and jumps into the river, becoming an outlaw and ending the friendship between them. After Humpty, who had followed the two, explains to Puss that he wants a second chance, Puss agrees to help him find the beans/golden eggs, making it clear that he is doing it for the town and his mother who adopted him, not for Humpty. The three of them set off to find Jack and Jill, finally seeing them coming towards them, hiding in a canyon type place in the desert. Kitty jumps onto their cart which is pulled by warthogs, followed by Puss, while Humpty readies their getaway vehicle. Puss lowers Kitty into the back of the cart, who struggles to open the box the beans are held in (which is around Jack's hand), with Puss urging her to use her claws. She finally admits to him that she has no claws, which wakes up one of the baby pigs sleeping in the back. Puss drops in beside her and opens the box with his claws as Kitty quiets the baby pig, giving him to Puss as she uses her paws to get the beans from Jack's hand, giving them to Puss. Just as they are about to leave, Puss accidentally backs up and steps on two pigs' tails, alerting Jack and Jill, who drop into the bottom where they are. They manage to get outside, jam the levers to force their seats to stay up, and tie up their heads, signaling Humpty to get their own cart beside the one they're on now. Kitty jumps onto the cart, but Jill headbutts Puss before he can, briefly knocking him out and causing him to drop the beans, which bounce around the top of the cart, almost falling off. Puss gets them back while fighting Jill, who somehow escaped, but she grabs him and dangles him over the edge of the cart and the canyon, about to drop him. Humpty rams the side of their cart and Puss lands back in their cart, and they get away. Kitty explains to Puss, as they are riding in the cart, that her adoptive owners got her claws removed for an unknown reason. They make it to the perfect spot to plant them, being directed in the right way by Humpty, and plant the beans in a bare, sandy area, right as a storm cloud comes overhead, and a giant funnel of green-lit clouds and wind comes spinning down the place they planted the beans, cracking the sand, then suddenly disappearing, leaving only a small weed where the beans are buried. Kitty suggests Humpty talk to it, which he does, but barely gets a few words out before a giant beanstalk shoots up out of the ground, taking them with it, higher and higher into the clouds before it finally stops. The three got off and surprisingly are able to stand and walk on the clouds without difficulty, although their voices grow higher due to the thin air (their voices return to normal in the normal air pressure of the castle.) They see a castle type building and they enter it, not having to fear the giant, as Humpty says it's been dead for years; although, there is a beast named the Great Terror in the castle, which if gazed upon, allegedly turns the gazer to stone. They cross the water far below and get to the island. With only a small run-in with whatever the Great Terror is, they find the golden eggs and a gosling that lays them. They take the gosling because the eggs are far too heavy and make it to the edge of the island before the rope they used to get across is broken, and they fall down into the canyon, the Great Terror not far behind. As they are trying to get away, Kitty falls into the water, unable to pull herself back onto the branch due to her not having claws, but she is saved by Puss. They escape and get back down to the ground, cutting the beanstalk down and rejoicing over getting the golden goose. They briefly dance, and Humpty pulls Kitty aside to tell her to not lose focus, obviously talking about her falling in love with Puss. Kitty leaves to get rest, and Humpty and Puss lay outside with the goose. Puss tells Humpty he is glad to have his brother back, and Humpty goes to sleep with the goose lying on top of him. Meanwhile, Jack and Jill suddenly come up behind Puss and knock him out. When Puss awakens, he is lying in the desert surrounded by birds, which he shoos away. He finds footprints and wagon tracks around him, and he follows them to the town he was adopted in. He sees a shadow of Humpty being held by Jack and Jill, and he follows them to save him, only to find them laughing and celebrating. Humpty explains to him how the only thing he wanted against Puss was turning him out at the guards' orders, and everyone had been working with him, even Jack and Jill. Puss doesn't fight against arrest (told not to by his adoptive mother) and sees Kitty as he is being led away in a carrier, knowing she has betrayed him. While in jail, he finds an old man who had the beans first in the same cell, and he tells Puss that the Great Terror is in fact the gosling's mother and will destroy the town trying to get her baby back. Realizing Humpty intended to destroy the town all along, Puss escapes using his adorably big eyes to practically hypnotize the guard, and a repentant Kitty comes back to do the rest and she also tells him she loves him. She helps Puss escape, and he goes to find Humpty. Tracking him down just as the Great Terror arrives, Puss convinces Humpty to help him fight off the Great Terror, saying he knows Humpty is a good person at heart. Using the golden goose as bait, Puss and Humpty lure the Great Terror out of the town. During the chase, Jack and Jill betray Humpty and try to take the golden goose, but get crushed by the Great Terror. Humpty and the golden goose are knocked off a bridge with Puss holding onto them. Humpty knows Puss cannot hold both of them, so he lets go, sacrificing himself to save the golden goose and the town. Humpty's shell cracks open to reveal he was a golden egg on the inside. The Great Terror then takes the golden goose and Humpty back to the giant's castle. Puss' efforts to save San Ricardo make him a hero among the townspeople and his mother, despite he and Kitty getting away from the guards still, and Kitty says she will see him again soon, showing that she has taken his boots. During the first half of the credits, Puss and Kitty are seen dancing to the beat of the music of the credits. Cast Production Attempts of an animated feature film based on Puss in Boots were first developed in 1972 by Dora Wilson. However in 1973, the workers of DreamWorks studio had gone through many issues and problems of adapting the story, which leads to cancel the project. Later in the 1980s, the studio revived the project, but again scrapped after various story problems. Later in the late 1990s, during the production of Shrek, Puss in Boots was thought to be added to the film as one of the exile fairytale creatures until it got dropped. However, in the early 2000s, the character was thought up to be added in a Shrek sequel as a new supporting character, until the producers decided to have him star as the main character in an stand-alone film when DreamWorks co-owner Jeffrey Katzenberg thought "Puss was a very great character and deserved more that being a supporting character". Chris Miller was hired to direct the film, and then pitched to executives a version which would tell the protagonist's origin story before the events of Perrault's original story, which would involving the children's nursery rhyme "Humpty Dumpty" and the magic beans from the fairy tale Jack and the Beanstalk as major plot points. Katzenberg accepted the idea and greenlight Miller's version. In September 2002, Guillermo del Toro signed on as executive producer. Discussing del Toro, Miller stated: "We worked out a system for him to come in once every few months or whenever we had something new to show him. If we needed someone to bounce ideas off of, he was always there, and if we had a problem we were tackling, we'd get Guillermo on the red phone – our emergency phone – and ask him advice on what we should do with a certain character or scene. It was like having our own film school." Miller stated that del Toro was particularly involved in Humpty's character design. "Guillermo loved the dreamy quality of Humpty Dumpty. He suggested we push that further, make him more like da Vinci." It was del Toro's idea to make Humpty "an ingenious freak of nature" who builds contraptions such as a flying machine. Del Toro rewrote the ending to redeem the character and deepen his relationship with Puss – an unconventional conclusion for a family film. He helped design the fantasy elements of the giant's castle, as well as the architecture of the town, which he conceived as "an amalgam of Spain and Mexico". For his design and animation, Puss in Boots was required a whole new set of tools in the film to handle his fur, belt and feather plume in his hat. The character also required an upgrade in the fur shader for his introduction in the film. The film was renamed Cat in Boots in the United Arab Emirates for officially unknown reasons, but it is suspected for religious and cultural reasons. According to the UAE's The National Media Council, which is responsible for censorship, the UAE didn't have any involvement in the rename and that "the decision to change the name had been made by the Hollywood studio and the movie distributors in the UAE." Consequently, since the film's distributor was based in the UAE, the same print was syndicated to all theaters throughout the Middle East. However, the name change was limited to the film's original theatrical run, as merchandise and later regional home media release retained the film's original title. Casting Before Banderas was casted as Puss in Boots, Jim Carrey was attached for the role because producers wanted Puss to be light hard and funny, but he declined due to being cast in A Series of Unfortunate Events instead. Johnny Depp was the first choice to play Puss. In early 2000, Depp did several screen tests and was almost casted, but didn't go threw with casting him and producers chosed Banderas instead Soundtrack Henry Jackman, the composer for Puss in Boots, utilized folk instruments of traditional Latin music. Inspired by Spanish composer Manuel de Falla, Jackman blended guitars and Latin percussion with an orchestral sound influenced by Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel. Mexican guitar duo Rodrigo y Gabriela contributed to Jackman's score, and two of their songs, Diabolo Rojo and Hanuman were included in the soundtrack. Lady Gaga's song "Americano" was also featured in the film. The soundtrack for the film, featuring the original score by Jackman, was released on October 24, 2004, by Sony Classical. Release Reception Critical response Video game Trivia